


One More Victim

by fellowshipper



Series: grief in the sound, guilt in the fame [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Lady Loki, Pegging, Warning: Loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 12:35:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fellowshipper/pseuds/fellowshipper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony opened the bedroom door and decided that whatever the night brought, whether it was some much-needed relaxation with Bruce or just some good old fashioned wallowing, anything would be better than dealing with –</p><p>“Get on your knees.” </p><p>– Loki.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One More Victim

There were few guarantees in life. There were even fewer in Tony Stark’s life. To date, he’d narrowed them down to only three. One: the sun is a constant. It will one day, billions of years from now, burn out the last of its reserves and engulf the inner belt of planets in a devastating wave of heat and fire before shrinking back into itself and taking its place as yet another cold, dead, utterly unremarkable star.

Two: no matter how much JARVIS, Pepper, Rhodey, or anyone else lectured him, there was no such thing as a time of day at which it was too early to start drinking.

Three, and possibly directly related to two: any time a day began with an explosion and warning alarms replaced the normal sound of an alarm clock, the day was unlikely to improve.

Tony reminded himself of the last two (and prayed the first would happen sooner rather than later) when what was officially documented as a “minor meteorological incident” shook the Tower and blew out several windows in one of the floors of the living quarters. All Tony had gathered was that Thor had responded badly to news that Loki had been spotted wreaking havoc somewhere in Queens – and seriously, why the hell would he or anyone else be in Queens? – and had flung himself off the balcony with Mjolnir leading the way. The resulting shock wave from the thunder had rattled several floors below and above Thor’s, and the accompanying lightning strikes had conveniently shattered a frankly unforgiveable number of windows in the same areas.

As it turned out, the intel had been faulty. As it also turned out, Loki didn’t have the market cornered on power-hungry magicians with strange obsessions with the color green. It was, in fact, a surprisingly large genre for would-be villains to embrace, although they rarely showed as much finesse or, for that matter, talent as Loki did even when he was just bored and being a dick.

This time around, the villain-of-the-week was some acne-scarred teen who apparently interpreted _Harry Potter_ as a manifesto, but whose list of magical talents began with summoning dozens of eagle-sized dragons and ended with not being able to actually control those dragons and thus needing the Avengers to save his worthless ass as well as the girlfriend’s car he’d sicced the dragons on in the first place and the surrounding neighborhood.

Steve lectured him over the team’s communication line when he overheard Tony laughing as the kid ducked into a covered bus stop, arms over his head and crying loudly about the dragons flogging him with their wings and tails. As Tony pointed out, he got the brat out of danger before the flames could do any real damage beyond burning his pitiful villain getup and singeing his hair. It was the least the kid could do in exchange for causing so much trouble just because his girlfriend broke up with him via text message the previous day.

“He’s a civilian, Tony,” Steve had pointed out in that same no-nonsense way that Tony was secretly beginning to suspect of being a front for some kind of wildly deviant personality Steve was just really good at hiding.

“He’s a dumbass. Meddling with the affairs of dragons and all that. Also, when did this become my life? There are _dragons_ flying around. Lots of miniature dragons. I’m pretty sure I just saw one take a dump on a police cruiser, and I’m not gonna lie, that’s hilarious, but _dragons_ , Cap.”

There was something like a faint chuckle on the other end of the line (deviant, Tony knew it) before Steve just told him to neutralize the dragons. Something about the CDC and WHO wanting to test them for diseases or the government wanting to dissect them as aliens or Richard Branson wanting one for a pet, whatever. Tony stopped listening. He was more interested in the conversation Clint was holding with himself, it seemed, over whether or not he should skewer one of the things with an arrow and take it back to Bruce as lunch for the Hulk.

Natasha was in the field and Bruce had wisely sat this one out, but not all the remaining members of the team needed to be there. Thor was probably doing more harm than good, honestly, as he started reminiscing about the good old days of proper dragon-slaying (and Tony was absolutely convinced Thor was just making shit up to screw with them) and got a little hammer-and-lightning happy. There were some truly disturbing smears of former dragons left all over the borough, and Steve finally told Thor to stand down after a lightning blast started another small fire. Steve himself had come for crowd control more than anything. Clint had been sold from the instant Steve mentioned dragons. And Tony . . .

Yeah, okay. Maybe he was kind of hoping that Thor’s faulty Loki-sense had been right.

It wasn’t like he expected Loki to stay the night. She – or maybe she was back to being he now – seemed like the type to steal all the covers and shove Tony out of bed if he tried to keep from freezing to death, and Tony didn’t particularly enjoy sharing his bed anyway if it wasn’t in a strictly sexual context. He didn’t expect to wake up to spooning and complaints about morning breath between yawns and groggy chatter. But it seemed fair to expect _something_ from Loki after spending the past several months engaging in increasingly lurid acts and putting up with her complete lack of communication.

It was like dating himself, for God’s sake, and that didn’t sit well with him at all.

So fine. Maybe he’d hoped Loki really was turning a pack (a flock? A gaggle?) of dragons loose on New York, or at least a part of it. Maybe he was being extra cranky with the actual culprit because he was some scrawny kid with dishwater blond hair and several inches too short to pass for Loki even if Tony squinted and looked away really quickly.

Not that he was counting, but JARVIS for some reason kept a running tally in the event Tony wanted to check on how long it had been since Loki had shown up in his workshop back in Malibu and done some pretty significant body damage to yet another one of his cars. Tony wasn’t interested, naturally, but as he was suiting up to head out to Queens, he casually asked JARVIS when the last time was that he’d seen Loki. Seven weeks, two days, twenty-three minutes, and nine seconds was the last time JARVIS had recorded her presence in Malibu; it had been much longer since she had dared to enter Stark Tower.

What could possibly keep Loki either so distracted or so disinterested in him that she could justify spending nearly two months without so much as a cryptic and vaguely threatening email? She could teleport herself across vast distances and bend reality in mind-breaking ways; she could damn well figure out how to create a Yahoo account and drop him a line.

Tony _should_ have lost interest in return. He had better things to do and his choice of any woman, man, or other sentient being. He even tried the night of the great dragon attack after Clint talked him into joining him for drinks at some little bar in the Bronx that reeked of stale beer and urine. Not Tony’s usual type of place, but full of enough regular, working class people that he could pretend to be anonymous for a while and not have to pretend to give half a shit about some undergrad trying to score an internship with him or the even more insufferable CEOs trying to schmooze him. A pretty young woman, a good ten years his junior, Tony guessed, sat at the end of the bar and gradually made her way closer until they were leaning in toward each other to talk. Her hand just “happened” to brush his thigh now and then; his gaze just “happened” to drop to the low scoop neck of her top. Clint had thought it was such a sure thing (and it should have been) that he excused himself and told Tony he’d get his own ride back to the Tower.

It should have been a sure thing. Right. Which didn’t explain why Tony ended up paying for the woman’s drinks and indulging in nothing more serious than some heavy petting and kissing in the backseat of a cab on their way to her apartment. She was into him, and she was cute enough, charming enough, that Tony could have had fun with her and kept himself entertained for a few hours. Instead, he just paid the cab fare, thanked her for a nice evening, wished her well, and told the cabbie to just start driving. Anywhere. The driver eyed him through the rearview mirror and appeared to want to argue until he caught sight of the bills fanned out in Tony’s hand. That was all the encouragement he needed.

So that was the story of how Tony ended up spending the next two hours sitting on the hood of a cab in a parking lot on second street in Jersey City, listening to a cabbie’s life story as they ate Thai food and looked out at the lights across the Hudson. Ronaldo was the oldest child of a couple who emigrated from Jamaica with three sons and a daughter. The middle son had since moved back to Jamaica and didn’t stay in contact. Ronaldo’s sister had gotten married and moved to Missouri, of all places, a few years back.

“What about your other brother? You said there were three of you,” Tony prodded through a mouthful of rice. Ronaldo nodded and poked at his container.

“Yeah, Aaron was on the force. Got killed in the Battle last year. He was off duty the day it happened, but he went in to help anyway. Don’t really know what happened, just that he never came home.”

Shit.

Tony swallowed hard and nodded, unsure what to say and regretting that he’d even brought it up.

“But hey, man, that scholarship your company set up for people who lost a family member in the fight? Aaron’s girl, Krista, she’s doing alright now. She moved in with her sister and she watches the kids so Krista can go to school. She just finished her first semester. Wants to be a social worker. Don’t pay shit, I tried to tell her that, but she won’t hear it.”

Tony nodded again, numb, and waited as long as it seemed polite to do so before telling Ronaldo he’d like to go home.

As he was getting out of the car, he told himself it wasn’t guilt, it wasn’t blood money he was paying as he emptied his wallet into the astonished driver’s hands. Just like it wasn’t guilt that would make him look up and donate to the immediate family of yet another person killed through his own ineptitude.

His theory about the day not improving when it started with an explosion was turning out to be true, he mused darkly, trying to still his racing thoughts as he shoved his hands into his coat pockets and watched the numbers over the elevator doors blink in and out of life with every floor passed.

“JARVIS, you up?”

“Always, sir.”

“Do me a favor. Look up Krista Holness – one l – of New York, New York. What’s the most recent thing you got?”

JARVIS was quiet for a moment before replying. “The most recent item is from the _New York Daily News_. An article entitled _From Devastation to Degrees: After the Battle_ ran on July second, 2013. A Mrs. Krista Holness was interviewed. Shall I read it for you?”

“No, just . . .” Tony closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall of the elevator. “Kids?”

“Two boys, Jacob and Michael Holness, aged five and two, respectively.”

Tony was a little unnerved by how he didn’t need to specify whose kids or what he even meant. He’d dragged JARVIS down that road so many times over the past year and a half that the AI didn’t even question him anymore.

“Earmark that article for me. See if you can find out where they live, or get me an email address or a phone number or something. Let me know what you come up with.”

“Yes, sir.”

The door slid open with barely a whisper and Tony stepped into the penthouse suite, already stifled from the weight of his coat and the feeling of his lungs being squeezed too tightly. One day he might stop trying to throw money at all his problems and he might stop feeling like reimbursing people for the death of their loved ones was anything like an apology. Right now, though, he just really wanted another drink.

He pulled his coat off and dropped it onto the sofa as he passed through the living room and toward the bar, conveniently avoiding the temptation to let his gaze slide toward the windows adjacent to the outside deck. Two of them had needed replaced after the incident with Loki; the floor had to be completely redone. The contractors did good work. Pepper hired the right people, real professionals. But Tony could still see the seams in the floor. He could still see the outline of his body in the glass, like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon brought to life. If he looked – and he didn’t, but it happened every time and he knew what would happen – he would feel unnaturally strong fingers on his jaw and taste blood on his tongue from having bitten it so hard after being thrown to the ground. He poured a scotch and stared resolutely at the top of the bar, refusing to let himself dwell on the feeling of his own body cutting through the air and the wind tearing into his skin like knives as he dived in a free fall toward the sidewalk several dozen stories below.

This entire day was a waste. It started out awful and only got worse from there, and it all came back to Loki. Everything always came back to her. Him. Whatever. It was her fault Tony reacted like a schoolboy spotting his crush in the hallway when he heard Loki might have reappeared in New York, her fault he was going to spend another night drinking too much to drown out the thoughts circling his mind. It was her fault he still had nightmares that woke him in the middle of the night shivering and frantically pulling in more air than it felt his chest could reasonably hold. It was her fault he felt uneasy in his own home, her fault he’d almost died on more than one occasion, and her fault he was still alive. Her fault he didn’t get laid that night, which would have been a far better use of his time than downing obscenely expensive alcohol and feeling sorry for himself.

With a grunt, he finished off the second glass of scotch and made his way toward the bedroom. He’d change into some old clothes he didn’t mind ruining, then he’d head down to the workshop to spend the rest of the night building something incredible but ultimately intended for the scrapheap. Or maybe he’d stop by the R&D floor that Bruce had more or less commandeered for his own purposes. They’d either solve the world’s energy crisis or end up watching the entire _Tremors_ series; either way, it had to be better than any other alternatives Tony could come up with.

He opened the bedroom door and decided that whatever the night brought, whether it was some much-needed relaxation with Bruce or just some good old fashioned wallowing, anything would be better than dealing with –

“Get on your knees.”

– Loki.

Tony prided himself on not being predictable. That was his thing: brilliant, sarcastic, unpredictable asshole. That’s what made him _him_. But the sound of Loki’s voice coming from somewhere in the darkened bedroom, deep and low with just a hint of a rasp, encouraged a very . . . _likely_ response from him every time he hears it, whether it was male or female in origin. Even more disturbing for Tony was that his immediate reaction was to obey, and he caught himself bending before stopping himself, well aware that Loki’s preternatural senses could still pick up on that even in the darkness. It made him feel a little better anyway.

“I’m really not in the mood for this toni—”

“I said,” Loki interrupted, voice firmer and colder this time, “get on your knees.” Every word was clearly enunciated so that Tony had no choice but to imagine the way Loki’s lips formed around every syllable, the flash of teeth like fangs and blood red lips – which is trite, he knew, but they were either always deep red or black, depending on Loki’s current level of psychosis.

“Just so we’re clear, this feels a lot like a formal execution. You join the mafia while you were gone or what?” Tony stalled for time, slowly lowering himself to his knees in . . . in subjugation, and shit, this really was getting out of hand.

Loki chuckled. “If I wanted you dead, Stark, you would be dead. I’ve had ample opportunity, after all. No, I’m here on far more pleasant business.”

“So you came by for sex.”

“Is there a problem?”

“Besides this, us, you, and the turn my entire life has taken in the past year? No. Everything’s great.”

The whisper of cloth rustling caught Tony’s attention, made him squint in the direction he knew Loki’s voice had to be coming from. As his eyes adjusted, he found he could just trace her shape in the chair against the far wall. The light glinted off something around her head and – for fuck’s sake. There was that stupid goat helmet. It was going to be one of _those_ nights, then.

His eyes had only begun to get used to the darkness when they were forced to adjust again as Loki threw the room into sudden, relative brightness by turning on the lamp on the nightstand beside her. Tony blinked twice to clear the spots from his eyes and felt his mouth dry up when he got his first look at Loki after several weeks apart.

She sat like a king – not a queen, not prim and regal, but slouched and with her legs splayed wide open so that her knees touched the arm of the chair on either side. She sat like she always did when she was male, actually, and that small measure of continuity was somehow comforting to Tony in a way he didn’t care to analyze. The golden helm sat proudly atop her head, and waves of black hair spilled from under it to fall over her shoulders, onto the massive brown pelt draped from her shoulders and pulled lazily into her lap. Aside from those two items and the smattering of jewels – bangles and rings, as per usual, and several long necklaces dangling between her breasts – she was completely nude.

“What’s that? A bear?”

“Do you like it?” she asked in return, stroking a hand over the soft fur but never taking her eyes off Tony. “I killed it myself.”

“Of course you did.”

“The bears in Asgard are larger, but yours are better sport. They’re faster, for one. I’ve learned that you have a giant white bear on this world as well. I’m quite keen on adding another fur to my collection.”

“Yeah, no. First, those are polar bears and considered an endangered species. They’ve got enough shit to worry about with melting icecaps and all that without having to worry about a fashionista Viking with a magic wand gunning for them. Second, I don’t mean to go all hippie tree-hugger on you or anything, and I know this is rich coming from the military’s former largest weapons supplier, but I’m not okay with that. With the fur-wearing thing, that is.”

“Ah. So you have a fondness for animals, then? That would rather explain your attachment to Banner.”

Tony sighed and closed his eyes, counted to four (sorry, Bruce, but he’d never make it to ten) and shook his head. “I’m not letting you bait me that easy, Loki, sorry.”

Loki had the audacity to look surprised, like Tony was actually meant to take that comment at face value and not as the blatant goading insult that it was, but she moved on quickly. She shifted in her seat, one arm resting in her lap on top of the fur, the other propped on the arm of the chair to support her cheek upon her fist.

“I’ve brought you a gift. Why don’t you come see what it is?”

“Because knowing you, it could be a severed head.”

“That would stink with rot and it wouldn’t keep well. Besides that, I don’t think you’d appreciate it much.”

Loki grinned at him, head tilting so that she could tuck her fist under her chin and look at him straight on.

“I admit to being unfamiliar with your customs here, but in Asgard, one brings a gift when visiting another’s home, and it would be rude for the host to refuse that gift. Come here, Tony Stark.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re so concerned about manners,” Tony grumbled as he moved to stand.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Loki tsked at him, hand lifting from her lap just long enough to point one impossibly long finger toward the ground. Surprised, Tony (dammit) obeyed instantly again, then scrunched his nose up in distaste.

“What, you want me to crawl? Fuck you.”

Loki was, by then, completely unfazed by Tony’s usual brazenness. She only smiled at him and added a faintly threatening edge to her voice, tightening the leash that much more.

“That _is_ part of the gift, as you’re aware, but not yet. Now be a good boy and come to me properly.”

“I’m not a boy,” Tony groused, swallowing his pride (ha, like it was even still there) and sank back onto his hands and knees to start, ugh, _crawling_ across his own floor like a supplicant. Loki tsked at him again when he dared to look up, reminded him to keep his eyes on the floor, and Tony felt his cheeks burn with humiliation even as his cock responded in a decidedly happier way. God, they deserved each other, he thought, both so fucked up and carting around so many issues that no one else could possibly ever deal with either of them.

One step, two steps, five, nine, twelve (and of _course_ Loki would be the twelfth step) to make it across the room, Tony obediently keeping his eyes on the floor and his quietly simmering rage to himself. Five minutes ago he was ready to swear off Loki, to actually turn her in and make her pay, at least in part, for the heartache and suffering she’d caused the year before, and now he was . . . he didn’t know what the hell he was doing, to be honest, but it wasn’t anything noble.

When he reached the chair, he kept his mouth shut and refused to grant Loki the pleasure of his scintillating wit (and maybe that had something to do, just slightly, with the fact Loki hadn’t given him explicit permission to talk yet, not that she’d told him not to, and goddamn, he needed another drink). He kept his head down as well even when he felt Loki’s hand stroking through his hair, her nails scratching lightly against his scalp and the nape of his neck to send shivers racing outward from anywhere she touched.

“Good, Tony.”

She so rarely used his preferred name (it was always either “Stark” or “Anthony” or any number of archaic words he didn’t understand and didn’t like when he had JARVIS translate them later) that Tony _might_ have leaned in toward her leg and kissed it right below her knee, earning him a pleased little noise that shot straight to his groin.

“I do so enjoy it when you let me lead you. I would not lead you into danger, my _járnsmiðr_. You need not fear me.”

Tony snorted. “Yeah, well, you’ll excuse me if that doesn’t mean much to me when it’s coming from the _god of lies._ ”

“Ah, yes. There is that. No matter. I mean you no harm tonight, at any rate, beyond whatever you may ask of me.”

Smug asshole, Tony thought, but she wasn’t far off the mark, either. They both seemed to follow the “go big or go home” rule and both of them were too proud to give an inch, so sex between them seemed almost like a battle with real stakes and way too real potential for injury. Tony wouldn’t have it any other way, and he knew, when Loki cupped his chin and tilted his face up to meet hers, that the same was true for her as well.

“You look magnificent on your knees before me, Stark. I almost wish I’d adopted my male form for tonight’s visit. As it were . . .”

She trailed off with a secretive grin, fingers curling into the pelt for a few seconds of anticipation before pulling it back and away from her lap. Tony looked over and . . . okay, correction: she was nude but for the helmet, the fur, and a strap-on dildo that looked suspiciously similar to the male Loki’s own cock.

Tony didn’t get surprised by much of anything, never had, but what the hell was he supposed to do when he came face-to-glans with a terrifyingly realistic copy of his fuck buddy’s dick when it wasn’t currently attached to said fuck buddy? A larger version, though, and that made Tony crack a smile; human, god, or Jotun, men were the same everywhere.

“I went to many different shops and found many different varieties, but none of them suited me. In the end, I decided to craft one to my liking,” Loki explained in the same tone a chemist would use to explain basic reactions, and that did absolutely nothing to dispel the surreal moment Tony was having.

It took his mouth a few seconds to catch up to his brain.

“You made a magical dildo.”

“I magically made a dildo. Really, Stark. How is it that I have a better understanding of the importance of syntax to your own language?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine. You magically made your own disco stick. Congratulations. My dick has actually compelled you to start using your powers for good. I’ll add my Nobel Prize to the list of things Nick Fury can kiss my ass over.”

He didn’t imagine the amused almost-laugh Loki gave to that, so Tony pressed on for sheer curiosity’s sake, reaching out to trail his finger over the dildo. Huh. Silicone, most likely, not as hard and unforgiving as many other toys he’d encountered. Solid muscle, or something like it, surrounded by alarmingly realistic skin and veins and –

“I know we just had that talk about the severed head, but please tell me you didn’t bring me a severed penis.”

“Don’t be stupid. If I did that, it wouldn’t stay hard. We’d hardly have any use for it then, would we?”

Tony’s eyes narrowed. “It sounds like you’ve thought about that. Actually, no, I don’t wanna have this conversation, so let’s move on.” He flicked his finger at the head and could almost swear he felt Loki take in a sharp breath. Interesting. “So what’s it do?”

“Has it been so long since you’ve seen my male form that you’ve forgotten how this goes?”

“You’re such a little shit. _No_ , I mean . . . what’s so special about it? Does it vibrate? Shock? Grow in size?” Tony cast a dubious glance at the fake cock jutting proudly from its harness, tried to imagine how that would ever fit into any hole his body had or might ever form. “’Cause I’ll tell you right now, I’ll leave the horse dicks to you.”

“Tread lightly, Stark. My fondness for you does have its limits. I suggest you not test them.” Loki glanced down at the dildo as though considering. “It does none of those things. Although if tonight’s experiment goes well, I'll take those improvements into consideration for the next model.”

Oh. Well. That sounded promising.

“God. You know how to get a nerdy engineer all hot and bothered, don't you?”

“I take that to mean you enjoy your gift?”

Tony had completely forgotten about that already. “Right. That. Uh, I mean, it’s kind of . . .” He tilted his head and studied the toy. “Loki, that’s not gonna fit. Anywhere.”

“Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Right where it’s always been, fully tied up with the lone synapse responsible for keeping me from doing stupid shit like swallowing battery acid or walking in front of a bus or, oh yeah, letting that thing in any orifice I currently have.”

“I could give you a new one, if what you currently have is insufficient.”

Tony cringed and shrank back. “This is rapidly turning into the unsexiest pregame ever. Bear in mind that I once hooked up with a girl who puked refried beans and rice on me and we _still_ did it.”

“I was only having fun. Unless you would have agreed,” Loki added with a wink, and yeah, that still didn’t help Tony’s sudden bout of nausea. “You’re exaggerating anyway, Stark. I used myself as a model. It’s precisely the same size.”

“Loki, I’m totally happy with your dick as it is. You don’t have to embellish.”

Loki glanced down again and seemed to really see the dildo for the first time, her lips pursing in thought. “Perhaps I did skew the measurements a bit. But it’s nothing you can’t handle.”

“I’m glad you have so much faith in my middle-aged body’s ability to repair grievous injuries.”

“Oh, Norns, Stark, I’ll heal you myself if need be. I hadn’t planned on needing to talk you into this.”

“And I hadn’t planned on getting fucked by a donkey tonight, either. Life’s full of surprises that way.”

Fine. So once Tony looked it over, it wasn’t _that_ much larger than Loki’s natural cock, but it certainly _seemed_ that way without the accompanying sac to establish its proportions. Really, he was more interested in seeing what would happen if he trailed his fingertip on the underside of the shaft –

Loki breathed in quickly through her nose, and Tony knew exactly what that noise meant.

“Oh my God. You depraved, perverted little shit. You can feel this, can’t you?”

Loki smiled as sheepishly as someone like her could ever manage, the look of a child getting caught doing something she wasn’t trying overly hard to hide in the first place. “Not the same as I would as a man, but I confess to having made some special alterations.”

“Oh my God,” Tony repeated, this time with a quiet laugh. “You are awful and twisted and _God,_ you’re perfect.”

She smiled down at him, pleased and beneficent at once, and Tony pushed back the treacherous whispers in his head reminding him of the long line of bodies she’d left in her wake and the blood that soaked her path to him. Merchant of Death, right? Or just the middleman now.

“Sir,” JARVIS interrupted, “I’ve located Mrs. Holness’s residence. She currently—”

“Not now, J.” Tony looked up to see Loki, in turn, eying him suspiciously, and he shrugged. “Pet project I was working on before you showed up.”

Loki’s lips parted in an unvoiced question before the moment passed, her more immediate desires overruling her curiosity for now. Her mouth closed again and twisted into a faint smile as she carded her fingers through Tony’s hair.

“Would you mind, darling?”

She gave a short tug of her hand, pulling Tony’s head forward, and Tony shot a withering glare up at her

“You want me to suck your fake-but-possibly-and-very-creepily-sentient-cock?”

By way of answer, she pulled him closer still and hooked a ridiculously long leg over his shoulder. The movement caused her to slide down a little more in the chair. Tony tried to compensate by balancing himself with his hands against her thighs, but she used her free hand to smack his away.

“I’ve far better ideas for how to use your hands.”

Before Tony could ask for a more elaborate (and less unsettling) explanation, Loki reached over the arm of the chair to gather a – fuck, a bottle of lubricant that had gone previously unnoticed beside her. Straight to the chase then, Tony thought, until Loki pushed the bottle toward him.

“I would recommend three fingers at least, Stark. Four if you’re flexible enough, seeing as how you’re so concerned with size.”

Tony’s jaw went slack (and for the wrong reasons), which in no way explained why he still accepted the lube or why he popped the cap open with his thumb in an automatic gesture he’d gotten very good at doing on autopilot.

“You’re serious.”

“Always.”

“So full of shit, I swear to God,” Tony muttered under his breath, averting his gaze only so that he could focus on squeezing out enough liquid to pool at the end of his right hand. He was also fully aware of Loki’s own intense stare, which he pointedly ignored just for spite. He leaned forward, knees sliding farther apart, and grazed his fingertips over his balls, across the perineum, on back until he could tease the hole with his middle finger.

“Yes, like that,” Loki cooed over his head, and Tony wanted to throw back a mocking comment about her getting off on this until he realized that of course she was, that was the whole point. He sucked his bottom lip between his teeth and stared at the . . . _generous_ cock jutting forward from Loki’s crotch, tried to imagine how it would feel once he was ready (if he was ever ready), and failed. Failed spectacularly, in fact. He shook his head, though not far thanks to the way Loki’s fingers tightened in his hair.

“Go on. Open yourself for me, Anthony. One finger, one breath at a time.”

Her voice was so soft, so sweet, so entirely unlike her and everything Tony knew her to be in whatever form she took that he couldn’t help but comply. The first breach of his fingertip made his breath catch; as he sank down and felt the oiled finger slide deeper, that breath dragged out on a thin moan. He’d done this before, of course, more than once and for more than one person, but never like this.

He looked up to see Loki watching him like he held every answer in the universe, green eyes swallowed by dark pupils. Yeah. _Christ_ , never like this.

He didn’t have Loki’s impossible strength or her uncanny balance, so he still had to use one hand on the chair cushion to prop himself up. Loki, in all her benevolence, allowed him that small dignity, but only because it put him closer to the strap-on.

“How long has it been since I’ve been inside you, hmm?”

Tony grunted and sank deeper, found his reward in the reflexive tensing of Loki’s fingers and the tighter pull at his hair.

“Too long, I know, but _how_ long? Weeks?”

Tony fixed his eyes on Loki and made sure she saw him lick a stripe up the underside of the dildo, tongue bumping over the barely raised veins. She offered a somewhat shuddery laugh in return.

“Longer, then. Months? Surely it hasn’t been so long since you—” She narrowed her eyes at him, breath hitching when Tony’s mouth closed around the head of the cock. “Since you opened your body to me. Mmm. Or perhaps it has been that long. You do seem eager.”

Barely ten seconds into this and Tony’s jaw already ached. Yeah, it’d been a while, but no matter what Loki said (or what Tony told himself to steel his courage), this thing was bigger than anything he’d taken at least since an ill-advised and short-lived coke binge in his late twenties. That had just been awkward for everyone involved and what led to him finally swearing off hard drugs.

“Oh. Oh, but your _mouth_ , Stark. Yes, I have missed that. I remember that tongue most vividly. I also know you can take much more than that.”

Tony’s sixth sense – his Loki sense, basically – alerted him to danger a split second before Loki’s hand curled against the back of his head and pushed him down, forcing the dildo farther than what he could reasonably handle without preparation. He gagged immediately, forced his way back and off and choked.

“The hell?” he gasped out once he was certain he wouldn’t throw up, taking his hand off the chair to angrily wipe away the drool at his mouth. Loki looked as unapologetic as ever.

“I got excited. Forgive me.”

“You don’t sound very sorry.”

Loki shrugged, the gesture almost hidden under the thick fur over her shoulders. Tony rolled his eyes, maybe mumbled something derogatory to himself, and leaned forward to try again. Loki, to her credit, didn’t try to gag him this time, though her hand was still insistent and heavy against Tony’s skull. When he made it halfway down the shaft, he worked a second finger into his ass and closed his eyes, both movements prompting Loki to make a soft noise of encouragement.

“Have you done this to yourself in my absence? You don’t need to answer now, obviously,” she added with a knowing smirk, and Tony moved his free hand just long enough to flip her off. “I think of you often, you know. Undressed, still red and sweating, my seed dripping between your thighs and from your mouth.”

Tony groaned and shifted his weight to fit in a third finger, muscles protesting but everything else screaming that this was exactly what he wanted. Loki cackled – that was really the only appropriate way to describe the noise she made – and cradled his head with both hands, drawing him even farther into her lap so that he had more room to work.

“You like that image I’ve given you? I have more, if you’re interested.”

Well, might as well go for broke. No longer needing to balance himself with his hand, Tony leaned heavily against the front of the chair and bends forward, simultaneously taking more of the toy and just barely angling his hand to get his smallest finger inside. So _that_ wasnew, and Tony Stark finding a novelty in sex was like finding a leprechaun riding a unicorn, so it was no wonder he shivered and rolled his hips down onto his fingers. His _hand_ , he was practically _fisting_ himself now, and fuck, he thought he was depraved before Loki came along. He was a _saint_.

“I think I’d rather make some of those images reality, come to think of it.”

Tony gasped with surprise when Loki tangled her hand in his hair and yanked him back, ropes of saliva still bridging him to the dildo. He was kind of disturbed by how hot he thought that was. The bond broke when Loki stood, the fur dropping behind her to sweep the floor. Oh, good, she was facing the bed, she was walking toward the bed –

She still had her hand in Tony’s hair.

“Owowow, _shit_ , stop!”

She didn’t, and Tony had learned a long time ago that Thor wasn’t the only alien Viking with impressive strength. For the sake of his hair, he crawled along beside her, swallowing the humiliation burning its way up his throat and trying just as hard to ignore the way blood swelled his cock.

“I hate you,” he pointed out sourly. “I hate you. I hate your stupid bear cloak. I’m calling PeTA first thing in the morning. I hate my life. I hate everything right now. I _really_ hate my dick and its total lack of standards.”

Loki stopped abruptly at the end of the bed and used the hand still in Tony’s hair to force his head back so that they could catch each other’s gaze.

“That’s quite enough, Stark. You’re free to go whenever you like. I’m not interested in unwilling playthings.”

Tony gaped up at her. “Well, fuck you, too. I’m not a _plaything_. I’m . . .” Crawling on my hands and knees at your bidding, about to gleefully get speared open to take your giant fake cock until I either pass out or you get bored. That sounded an awful lot like a plaything, actually. Loki knew it, too, judging from the satisfied look she gave him.

“Come up here. Let me see you properly.”

There was no hesitation this time, just willful obedience as Tony stood and knelt on the bed, walking forward on his hands and knees until a firm hand settled on his hip to stop him. The hand stroked over his side like someone petting a startled horse’s flank to calm it (heh, but Tony kept that one to himself), then down, palm flat against his stomach and sinking lower but stopping before it got anywhere interesting.

“Look at you. All stretched and waiting for me.”

Loki scratched her nails lightly against Tony’s stomach as she dragged her hand away and then slid it up Tony’s back, cupping the nape of his neck and tangling in his hair again to make him look up at her.

“Make me believe you want it.”

As if the evidence she wanted wasn’t already glaringly obvious and dangling heavily between Tony’s legs. Whatever. He could play this game. Hell, he’d practically _invented_ this game. With a smirk, he rolled onto his side so that he could take the dildo into his mouth again, twisting his arm beneath him to push two fingers into his ass. There was less resistance this time, his body opening up easily, and the accompanying moan was echoed somewhere above him. Perfect.

When Loki picked up the pace and began fucking his mouth, Tony knew he’d won. He also knew there was little he could do but accept the brutal thrusts and hope Loki took pity on him later and worked her mojo to heal his throat.

With every turn of Loki’s hips and every slide of slick not-skin between his lips, Tony bore down on his fingers and rocked against them. A spark caught fire on one round and he dropped his head back against the mattress, temporarily forgetting that he was supposed to be serving Loki at the moment when he was far too interested in chasing that electric rush.

“Exquisite.” Tony blinked, forced his gaze up to meet Loki’s. “You are _exquisite_.”

Well. Tony wouldn’t argue that point even if he could, but confirmation was nice, too.

He watched as Loki held out a hand and summoned the lube into her palm – okay, yeah, most useful power _ever_ – and then watched her eyes widen in surprise when he reached out to snatch the bottle from her.

“My treat,” he teased, offering a wink and a grin while sitting up on his knees and pouring a healthy amount of liquid out over his fingers. He glanced at the toy and poured out a little more, earning a snort for his effort.

“C’mere, baby,” he said, voice a raspy whisper as he looped an arm around Loki’s waist and tugged her nearer. When she was close enough, he wrapped his hand around the dildo and stroked, squeezing and releasing his fingers at random intervals to test just how much sensory feedback Loki had built into the thing. Her back arched slightly and her groin tilted forward, seeking more contact, a telling enough answer in its own right.

Tony licked up the center of Loki’s chest, over the delicate swell of one breast, following it out to the nipple. Loki’s response was immediate and visceral, one hand curling over Tony’s shoulder to leave deep gouges in the skin, the other twisting painfully tight in his hair. He bit with more force than a human could have handled without punching him; Loki only groaned and pulled him closer.

“Oh, I am so very glad I didn’t kill you when I had the chance. It would be a pity to have – oh – to have never known this.”

“You keep sweet-talking me like that and I might just marry you.”

“I don’t look good in white.”

“Who said it’d be a white wedding? I’m talking full-out tacky shit. Red and gold and green everywhere. Like a Macy’s Christmas parade exploded. It’d be great.”

The laugh that got him was worth it, full and deep and more honest than most of what Loki ever showed him. It was infectious, too, or maybe Tony was just buzzed enough to warrant laughing along with her while she cradled his head against her breasts. Not a terrible arrangement, all told.

Strong hands, frighteningly strong hands hidden behind soft skin like a dagger swaddled in velvet, cupped Tony’s face and tilted his head back again.

“Are you ready to receive your bride, then?”

“Got a feeling my bride’s gonna take me first, but yeah, sure. I do, all that jazz.” Loki traced the tip of her finger along Tony’s jaw and he lifted up higher onto his knees to put them more or less at eye level. “Want you to fuck me. Hard and fast. Take no prisoners.”

“Brave words. I mean to hold you to them.”

Loki playfully shoved him backwards onto the bed, where Tony landed with a snort of laughter. Yeah, definitely buzzed. But horny and, fuck it, who was he kidding – happy. Happy with the god of lies, the god of mischief, the god of daddy issues and genderfucked everything and Reeses Cups (for the rest of his life, Tony would secretly treasure the blissful expression on Loki’s face the first time he relented to Tony’s constant attempts to feed him, even if it spawned an obsession that Tony was having difficulty hiding; Bruce kept finding caches of Reeses everywhere and expressed concern over Tony’s flirtation with diabetes). He was happy with this freak, this animal, this _killer_ , happy to lose himself in her (or his) body for a few hours but even happier just to know she was there.

That said absolutely nothing complimentary about his mental state.

Wanton still but willing to return the playfulness, Tony dropped forward onto his elbows and raised his ass into the air, wiggling it and laughing when Loki smacked it.

“Hold still. There will be time enough for that later.”

Two cool, smooth hands palmed both cheeks, kneading into the thick flesh and spreading each side, then repeating the process again and again until Tony glared over his shoulder.

“You planning on actually doing anything back there?”

“Patience is a virtue.” Loki’s eyes flicked up to meet Tony’s, briefly, before dropping back down to watch her hands move across his skin. “Or so I’m told. I’ve never exactly been virtuous, as you could imagine.”

“Yeah, me either. So if you just wanna, you know, shove it in and fuck me senseless, that’s cool. I’m totally fine with that.”

Loki chuckled and shook her head, palm sliding down the center of Tony’s back. “Clearly, you still have much to learn about delayed gratification. I’ll have to teach you sometime.”

“Oh, like a naughty student-teacher thing? I like that.” And, after a moment of thought, “I hope there’s paddling involved.”

“That could be arranged.”

“Sweet.”

The hand on Tony’s back moved higher, curling against the back of his neck as he felt Loki’s body press closer to his. The blunt head of the toy prodded at his opening without entering just yet. He told himself he wouldn’t make any embarrassing noises; he broke that vow the instant he felt the head press into him, tight muscle stretching to try to accommodate it.

Make no mistake, Loki was big. Tony refused to feed his ego and call him “godly,” but he couldn’t deny that Loki was endowed well enough to make him feel slightly envious (but mostly glad that he got to reap the benefits). It was _never_ easy for him to take Loki’s cock, but he always managed it with enough time and determination. This toy, though . . . it might have been modeled after the original, but Loki had definitely taken some liberties with the dimensions.

And that was how Tony Stark found himself face down on his bed, eyes squeezed shut, fingers curled like talons into the sheets, with his ass in the air and Loki’s magical fake cock only beginning to split him open.

“Shh, darling,” Loki cooed, her breasts heavy against Tony’s back as she leaned over him. “Relax. You can take it, can’t you? I know you can. Just relax. Lie back and think of Captain America, if it helps.”

Talk about a way to kill a boner in less than three seconds . . .

 

“I hate you so fucking much.”

“Yes, of course. Now stop, you’re clenching up and this is only going to be more difficult for you.”

Tony felt the dildo sliding about as Loki backed up and pushed back in, making it a half-inch deeper this time. Every nerve in his body seemed to cry uncle, but all he could focus on was the burning stretch of his muscles and the way even like this, in a different form with a fake dick, Loki _still_ seemed like she belonged here. With him. Like this.

Another inch, another, slow and slick, and Christ, this was going to hurt in the best possible way in the morning.

“You’re being so good, Anthony. Your body remembers me, male or female.” Loki bent and flattened her tongue against Tony’s shoulder. “So good.”

“More,” Tony gasped out, earning another throaty laugh.

“Oh, there’s more. Can’t give away everything at once, can I? That’s no fun.”

Loki’s hips snapped forward, barreling straight past the meager defense that was Tony’s body so that she could settle inside completely, a movement so jarring and abrupt that Tony howled and instinctively tried to move away. _Tried_ , of course, because Loki held onto him with a grip like steel. Once she was seated completely, thighs pressed against the back of Tony’s, she let out a long breath that sounded like relief.

“There. Is that so bad?”

“Yes,” Tony shot back immediately, tears welling in his eyes when he shifted his hips to try to relieve the pressure and only succeeded in helping Loki find that extra centimeter of give.

“Oh. Well, my apologies.” Loki didn’t sound sorry at all – Tony could almost _feel_ the smile on her face – but she didn’t give him a chance to respond before she withdrew and pushed forward again, her path already cleared and providing little resistance this time. The head of the toy bumped against Tony’s prostate and he moaned, half-pleasurable, half-miserable, because even that small jolt of _good_ wasn’t enough to drown out the _badbadowowfuckingow_ chorus in his head.

The next time Loki pulled out, she waited and stroked her hand over Tony’s ass, fingertips tracing the hole and then pressing against it when it tried to flutter closed. Tony had never met anyone with a dirtier mind than he had, and it really shouldn’t have turned him on as much as it did. Probably shouldn’t have.

Loki’s hands slotted around his hips (and they fit so perfectly, _why_ did they fit so perfectly if they weren’t meant to sit just so under Loki’s palms) and she lurched forward again, filling him inch by excruciating inch.

“There. I told you you could take it.” Complete with a condescending pat on the cheek and everything. Tony had a momentary flash of brilliance – or insanity – that left him wanting to bite that hand, but Loki pulled it away and fixed it back on his hip before he could act on the impulse.

Sweat trickled from Tony’s scalp as Loki increased her pace, eventually setting a punishing speed that made the bed creak and every cell Tony possessed ache. It a _good_ ache, though, deep and reassuring, particularly when he let out another humiliating sound and Loki took that as incentive to hammer away at that spot.

“ _More_ ,” he pleaded (except that Tony Stark did not _beg_ ), which got him a hand twisted in his hair and yanking hard enough to bend him backwards. He gasped in surprise, winced at the pain, cursed himself for overlooking Loki’s tendency to take everything to extremes, but damned if he’d take it back.

The last hand anchoring him slipped away to head straight for his cock, wrapping around the shaft and squeezing until his mouth went dry.

“Not yet.”

“Loki . . . Loki, fuck, come on!”

“I’ll give you what you need,” Loki purred into Tony’s ear, pure sin dripping from her dark red lips, “but first I’ll take what I want.”

Tony knew how that went, had known since the first time Loki showed up and all but jumped him in his workshop. Didn’t mean he wouldn’t still get frustrated as hell when Loki pulled free and rolled him onto his back.

That frustration, however, was short-lived.

Loki always looked so ethereal, unnaturally beautiful in whatever form she took, and yeah, that was part of her appeal. And then there were the times when she looked utterly human, her normally perfectly groomed appearance marred by frizzy hair and sweat on her heat-reddened skin, eyes wide and greedy as she looked down at Tony like he was a meal to sate her deepest hunger.

He swallowed and grinned, watching her hips swivel as she unfastened the harness. All she had to do was tap one of his own hips to make him plant his feet against the bed and lift up in response to her silent request, groaning as she slid the dildo back into him. After propping a pillow under the base to secure it, she pushed down on his thighs to lower him back down onto it.

“God,” he whispered, unsure if he was just saying it or indulging Loki’s desire for worship. Whichever it was, it worked; Loki grinned at him with too many teeth and crawled up his body, her palms flattened against his skin and leading the way for long limbs and dark hair falling all around her and –

“I think I like where this is going.”

Loki wasted no time – she always did take exactly what she wanted, and she didn’t usually warn Tony about it first – in positioning herself over his crotch and reaching behind her to take hold of his cock to guide it to her entrance. Tony held his breath, entranced with her face as she sank down onto him, as her expression went from something entirely unreadable to the purest kind of satisfaction.

And Tony – well, Tony was having a lot of fun himself, too, obviously. Sex with Loki was always good, _always_ , but Tony had a special fondness for sex with Loki this way, when she was diamond sheathed in silk, visual curves hiding the same sharp angles as her male form. Forked tongue, brittle affection, unbreakable skin and bones of granite – plunged inside her, encompassed in the tight, damp heat of her cunt, was the only time Tony could find anything soft about her.

Head swimming with the visual, Tony leaned back as Loki leaned forward and over him, supporting her weight by gripping the headboard. That put her breasts directly in Tony’s face, and _that_ put a manic grin on his face.

“Yeah, definitely like where this is going.”

One arm winding about her waist, other hand sinking deep into her hair, Tony pulled Loki down as far as she would allow, bringing her close enough so he could suck and bite at her nipples. She muttered something in a language never spoken on this world, rolling back onto Tony’s cock and surging forward toward his mouth. Each determined thrust Tony gave dragged him perilously close to the edge, no matter how he tried to pace himself. How was he supposed to do that when he had a literal goddess (or at least the closest thing reality had to offer) riding his dick and moaning because of things _he_ was doing? God, was it really any wonder why he had an uncontrollable ego?

“Fuck, baby, there,” he murmured into Loki’s throat, words strained as Loki dropped down heavily enough to shove him down harder on the toy still lodged inside him. “Close, so close, God, right there . . . let me . . .”

This time, Loki took mercy. She gripped Tony’s chin and forced his head straight to make him meet her gaze.

“Come, Stark. Give me everything you have.”

Okay, so she also had a flair for the dramatic, but hey. Tony was guilty of that, too, so he couldn’t really complain, _especially_ not when it hit him right in the gut like that. With permission granted, he began thrusting harshly up into Loki, trying not to pay attention to how she held herself still for him to let him use her just this once, only like this, or how she stared at him with such burning intensity as he’d never seen from anyone in his life.

Up into her, down onto the toy, lights flaring behind his eyelids until Loki shook his head, her fingers still curved like a hawk’s claws around his chin.

“Eyes open. You will look at me and _know_ it’s me when you come.”

Like there was ever any chance of that _not_ happening. Tony knew not to test Loki when she got in this kind of mood, though, so whatever part of his brain was still responsible for keeping him alive wisely cut off reception to his mouth.

When his stomach twisted and a white hot bolt of pleasure tore through him, he resolutely kept his eyes open and let Loki steal his soul or whatever it was she was hoping to accomplish with this. Instincts won out for a second, squeezed his eyes shut as his orgasm hit, but Loki pulled him back with a sharp slap to the face and nails scraping into his flesh. He looked up at her, panicked and lost and everywhere at once, and she rewarded him with a deliberate clench of her muscles.

“Loki –!”

Oh, that must have struck a chord in her, judging from the way her eyes went half-lidded. What that chord was, exactly, was something Tony would have to tease out later, after he remembered how to breathe properly. For the time being, he was too concerned with chasing the high of climax, spiraling deeper and then there, _there_ , just a little more . . .

Loki felt it, she must have, because she tightened down around him again and leaned in to inhale deeply at his neck, and then – oh, _fuck_ – bit down hard enough to pierce the skin. Not the first time she’d done that (and for that matter, Tony had done the same to her on more than one occasion), though definitely harder this time than others, and Tony groaned in the ideal blend of pain and pleasure as he spilled into her.

“Yes, _yes_ ,” she echoed back at him, honest encouragement for once taking the place of open ridicule. Who was Tony to turn her down? The hand snarled in her hair twisted viciously, yanking her head to the side to expose her throat. Only fair for her to get a matching souvenir, really, and she allowed it, gasping and then moaning when Tony sank his teeth down as deeply as he could to try to break her stupidly durable skin. It wasn’t much more damage than what a small dog might do to a human – and the comparison wasn’t lost on Tony – but it was at least enough to draw blood and put them on somewhat less uneven footing. At any rate, it was enough for Loki to whimper and grind down against him, which, as Tony’s mind began to clear, reminded him that she probably hadn’t gotten off yet, and that just wouldn’t do at all.

With her help (there was no making Loki do anything she didn’t want, no moving her without her assistance, no _anything_ without her knowledge), he rolled her over onto her back and knelt between her legs.

“You didn’t come, did you?”

She shook her head coyly ( _liar_ , Tony’s mind pointed out). Didn’t matter what she answered, honestly, because either way Tony was going to sink down between her thighs and spread her legs open to take in the sight of her folds glistening with her own fluid and his come gradually seeping out of her. It _should_ have grossed him out, he knew that, and yet . . .

“Shit,” he grumbled, laughing awkwardly as he twisted around to pry the toy from his ass, wincing when it came free. Another moment of awkwardness before he decided to just dump it next to him on the bed; that was Loki’s mess to deal with, not his. Besides, now that the offer had been made, Loki seemed much keener on accepting it than taking on cleanup duties so soon.

The rest of her seemed pretty keen on the idea, too, as it turned out, her clit already swollen and easily found when Tony licked up from end to end. That first unbearable touch made her cry out as it always did, then she settled against the bed and twisted her fingers in Tony’s hair; if he’d grown it out just a bit in the past months so that she had a convenient handle, he wasn’t telling.

Two fingers pressed inside her soaked cunt and hooked toward the front wall, tongue and lips working together on her clit – Loki didn’t last long. Her rhythm faltered almost as quickly as it was established, snapping with a broken moan as she lost control. Tony hummed against her clit and scraped his teeth very lightly over the tip; he was reasonably certain he didn’t imagine the way the spasms around his fingers intensified slightly. He knew he didn’t imagine the shiver as he pulled his fingers free, saw them slick with their mingled fluids, and indulged some inexplicable urge to lick them. Higher up on the bed, Loki whimpered again, and when Tony looked up he saw her watching him with that same intense stare.

She licked her lips and dropped her gaze to his hand, and . . . _oh._

“You know,” he started, dipping his fingers into her and gathering some of the moisture there, “I’ve had a lot of sex with a lot of different people, and I’ve done some pretty damn filthy things.”

He acted as though he meant to pop the fingers into his mouth, only to smirk when Loki shot her hand out with lightning-fast reflexes to grip his wrist and drag his hand up to her mouth, her expression twisting into one of blissful focus as she licked his fingers.

“And this is . . . this is up there.”

Loki didn’t speak until she’d thoroughly cleaned every last bead of fluid from Tony’s skin. When she did, her voice was calm and softer than Tony ever remembered hearing it. _She_ was softer than he remembered, the hardness in her face having given way to some kind of post-orgasm happiness that wouldn’t last, but it was nice to see. Also nice: the fingers stroking through his hair, the almost gentle smile she gave him, the way her other hand kept playing with the bite mark on her neck and teasing it open to keep it fresh – okay, that last one was kind of strange, but it was also kind of hot. Somehow.

“The validity is suspect, of course, but I’ve read that this is very similar to a Jotun fertility ritual.”

Of all the possible things to come out of her mouth, Tony hadn’t anticipated that. He looked up sharply, head snapping up so quickly he was surprised it didn’t have sound effects. Maybe a 90s sitcom laugh track in the background.

“Supposedly,” Loki continued, now casually licking spots of blood off her fingers after teasing the bite mark on her neck, “they believe that feeding on a partner’s seed will lead to pregnancy and a healthy birth. I’m not sure they know how pregnancy works exactly.”

Tony glanced down, knew he was going to regret this entire evening very quickly. Spoke up anyway. “I realize it's probably a little late to be asking this, but are you _sure_ you can’t get pregnant?”

“By you?”

Okay, and there was no logical reason for Tony to be offended by that, but his nose wrinkled anyway. “Don't say it like that. You make it sound like a disease.”

Loki sighed and dropped her hands to fold them over her stomach. “If I were to become pregnant, I would have to maintain this form. That would take much more energy and care, quite frankly, than whatever benefits I might gain from such a parasite.”

And _that_ shouldn’t have surprised Tony; that’s pretty much exactly what he should have expected someone like Loki to say, and it wasn’t even far from his own views on children (well, maybe not the whole “parasite” thing, but…leeches, definitely). But it did, and he frowned, and Loki glared at him like a particularly loathsome stain.

“Damn, Mommy Dearest. That’s harsh.”

Loki shrugged. “But it answered your question, didn’t it?”

“Well, yeah, but . . .”

“Besides,” she interrupted, “I hardly think our species are compatible.”

“Oh, thank God.”

It was out before he could stop it, in true Tony Stark fashion, and Tony just _knew_ that was going to cost him. No matter Loki’s seeming disgust with the idea or his own indifference, he fully expected her to give him the mother of all side-eyes and then push him away, not even bothering with a sheet or anything as she rolled out of bed and walked toward the en suite bathroom.

“What? You called our potential kid a parasite! How is what I said any worse?”

Loki didn’t answer except to give Tony the iciest glare he’d ever received – and he’d worked with Pepper for several years and through several public disasters – so he wisely changed tactics.

“Where are you going?”

“To bathe.”

“Want some company?”

“No.”

And just to make sure her point was clear and emphatic, she slammed the bathroom door behind her harder than was necessary.

Tony stared at it for a long while as if she might poke her head out and laugh at him for being so gullible, then groaned and dropped his head against the mattress, _then_ turned it when he ended up staring at the dildo instead. It didn’t seem right that someone who showed up with magically-created sex toys also had such wild, unpredictable mood swings. There was probably some horribly sexist joke in it all about hormones and women being women and the like, but Tony already figured he was treading on very delicate ground. No need to hasten his inevitable death-by-angry-alien.

“JARVIS.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Holness. Put her and her kids in the recoup file. Flag it for me.”

“Understood.”

That was the official name, anyway; Tony mentally referred to it as Project Penance, but knowing that Loki could probably hear him even over the pounding of water in the shower, he played it safe. For once.

When he trusted himself enough to move again without his legs buckling under him, he headed for the door, downed the rest of his scotch that he’d left there, and walked over to the bar. Nice night out, he thought. For as much life and vitality as New York embodied, it always seemed disarmingly quiet from so high up and looking out from behind soundproof glass. He never trusted anything he couldn’t see up close and touch and take apart; _everything_ always seemed better from a distance.

He downed another shot and grunted through the burning sensation in his throat.

When Loki opened the bathroom door a good twenty minutes later, unapologetically naked save for the towel piled atop her head to contain her hair, she did so to the sight of Tony leaning against the adjacent wall with a glass of red wine and a black satin robe held out to her.

“Peace offering.”

She rolled her eyes but accepted the robe anyway, sliding easily into it without bothering to tie it closed. Tony appreciated that.

“Why would you think you need to bring me a peace offering?”

Tony scratched idly at the stubble on his cheek, reminded himself he needed to shave before he ended up giving Bruce a run for his money in the “sleepless, bearded mad scientist” department.

“I generally find it’s a good idea to appease visiting gods whenever I can.”

Loki leveled him with a glare; Tony steadfastly refused to call Loki, Thor, or anyone else a god and only ever did so with his tongue planted firmly in cheek. Maybe that wasn’t the best route to take when trying to make a clumsy apology for something he didn’t even know he’d done wrong.

“Plus, you kind of looked like you wanted to eat my intestines a few minutes ago. I’m still using them, so I thought I’d try to interest you in something else.”

The glare softened minutely, allowing Tony’s shoulders to sag just a little as some of the tension drained from them. Loki reached for the glass and took a delicate sip, eying him over the rim of the glass, then arched a brow at him.

“This will do.”

She turned on her heel and moved back to the bed, her robe fluttering for a second before settling again. Tony let out a breath and, okay, maybe a silent prayer of thanks to whatever deity might have been watching over him and protecting him from the one currently making herself at home on his bed.

Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was Tony’s irresistible charm, maybe Loki was just bored (it was probably the wine, honestly, as it was some of Tony’s best stock and by far Loki’s favorite), but within the hour Tony found himself sweating and panting again into Loki’s neck, shuddering through the last of his orgasm while Loki stroked her hands over his back and nibbled at his ear.

“Sorry,” he laughed when he caught his breath. “I guess that kinda defeats the purpose of taking a shower, huh?”

The laughter rumbled in Loki’s chest, echoed into Tony’s, and he pressed his face closer to the crook of her neck to hide the stupid grin on his face.

He rolled off and landed on his back with a huff, then immediately turned onto his side to face Loki. She was _glowing_ – not in the maudlin sense those more sentimental than Tony used to describe women after sex, but literally, her hands held palms up a few inches from her stomach and sparking green energy into the air.

“Working off some steam?” he asked, propping himself up on his elbow and watching with no small amount of fascination as the sparks burst from Loki’s fingertips and then faded like fluid, writhing fireworks.

“I haven’t had a chance to do so lately.”

“Two rounds in one night isn’t enough? Damn. You’re a difficult woman to please.”

Loki grinned and sent up another tiny flare. “So I’ve heard.”

Daring to use her moment of distraction against her (and also hoping the hormones were still thick enough in her blood that she would be less likely to tear out some obscure but vital body part), Tony moved closer and kissed her shoulder, one hand trailing up over her stomach.

“Wanna stay here tonight?” He could almost _feel_ her eyebrows arching into skeptical points, so he hurried on before she could reject him outright. “I like the idea of you being here when I wake up. I say ‘idea’ because it might be horrible and you might catch me drooling and you might snore and that might kill the romance, but . . . morning sex. That’s always a plus.”

Other sentimental types _who were not Tony goddamned Stark_ might have added that it had also been a depressingly long time since he’d wrapped himself around a warm body for a few hours with intentions of doing nothing but sleeping, and that he actually kind of missed waking up with someone else’s hair in his mouth and the sheets sticking to him because he got too hot with shared body heat.

Loki’s only immediate response was a simple “hmm” and then her attention was drawn back to her hands. Tony waited for a more elaborate response that he wasn’t given, then decided that the fact she was still there at all would have to suffice.

He didn’t remember falling asleep, but it was sometime in that haze between sleep and consciousness when Loki finally deigned to speak again.

“Would it really be so terrible?”

Tony debated over the wisdom of pretending to be asleep, even snorted lightly against Loki’s shoulder. Decided against it just as quickly because, right, god of lies and all that. There were bad ideas and then there were suicidal levels of bad ideas.

Lifting his head enough to peer over at her, Tony noticed that Loki’s head was turned slightly away from him, offering an exquisite view of her fine profile. She appeared to be staring into the middle distance. Okay.

“Huh?”

Loki hesitated for a moment of telling silence that stretched between them into years, it felt (or Tony was just really tired). “If we were compatible. If I could bear your child. Would you still react so . . . poorly as you did?”

Oh. Yeah, he _so_ should have pretended to be asleep.

Groaning, he slumped onto his back and blinked up at the ceiling as though it could offer any meaningful answers. JARVIS was unhelpfully silent, for once.

“Somehow, I’ve made it through my entire adult life without having this conversation. Congratulations on filling another first for me.” He dragged his hand down over his face and pressed his thumb and forefinger into the corners of his eyes. “I can’t have kids, Loki. I _can’t_. I mean, biologically, I guess, but . . . I don’t _want_ kids. My assistant has to have an assistant just to deal with my crap. I can’t even take care of myself. There’s no chance in hell I wouldn’t screw a kid up.”

Loki didn’t reply, but she did turn her head closer so that she could watch Tony from the corner of her eye. That was promising, so Tony continued.

“You know how every other kid gets a pet but then their parents end up taking care of it? Mine didn’t. I forgot about my hamster until it got out of its cage and got lost somewhere in the basement. We only found it after it died and started to rot. I can’t even be trusted with plants. I’m too selfish to have anyone rely on me for their every need, but at least I’m self-aware enough to realize that.”

Still no reply, and either Loki was actually listening or she was counting the numerous ways she could disembowel him with only her nails and teeth. With a quiet sigh, Tony shifted a little so that he was angled toward her. She was still watching. Good.

“But if you’re going where I think you’re going with this, for whatever it’s worth to you, I think you’d be a good parent. Sure, you might turn the kid into a neurotic psychopath with raging jealousy issues, but at least you’d be able to protect them.”

“That’s your definition of being a good parent? Protection alone?”

“Not alone, no, but it helps. It definitely helps knowing your old man’s in your corner.” He stopped and wrinkled his nose slightly, aware that he’d simultaneously poked at both their sorest spots without meaning to. “Or old lady, in your case. I guess. I don’t even know how that would work, and I honestly don’t _want_ to know.”

Loki gave only a wan smile in return, distant and detached from the conversation already, and Tony . . . actually, Tony was grateful for that. This wasn’t a discussion he’d ever wanted to have with anyone, much less a homicidal god who was already doing a fantastic job at complicating every facet of his life.

Why was this discussion taking place anyway? Probably just to screw with his head, and Tony knew damn well how much Loki enjoyed mind games, so he made sure to keep his voice very carefully neutral when he asked “Are you . . .?”

Loki chuckled again and shook her head. “I wouldn’t know so soon, but I doubt it. Your bachelorhood survives another day.”

“That’s not what I –”

“I know what you meant.”

Jaw clenching despite himself, Tony nodded once, curtly, and dropped all the way onto his back once more.

“Right. Well, uh. This has been great pillow talk and all, but I’m beat. Night.”

The last thing Tony consciously noticed before drifting to sleep was the feel of a hand sliding briefly into his and a whispered “sleep well, Tony” somewhere beside him.

And when JARVIS brought him groggily into the real world some hours later, all that remained of Loki’s presence was the robe on the floor, an empty wine glass on the bedside table, and a dull sense of foreboding blanketing Tony like a heavy snow.

“Jarv, when did I fall asleep?”

“Your vital monitors indicate you entered the first stage of sleep at 4:02 A.M.”

Tony swallowed, wincing at the dryness in his mouth. “And when did she take off?”

“There was a system process error at 4:05 A.M., sir. I would presume this was when Loki’s teleportation interfered with my –”

“Yeah, got it. Thanks.”

Tony sat up and dropped his face into his hands, working the heels of his palms into his eyelids to try to rub away the last remains of sleep.

“Coffee will be ready in approximately six minutes, sir. Shall I open the Mark IX design project folder for you?”

Which had been the status quo for the past several weeks. Coffee, something sugary or greasy to jumpstart him, and then the new suit occupying most of his time. It was a routine. Safe. Comfortable. What he needed after the uncertainty of the past year (or forty-some years).

Tony turned his head until his neck cracked, then to the other side, and finally said through a yawn, “Not today. Open up . . .”

He should work on Project Penance (that was _not_ its name, he scolded himself). Probably should work on the Mark IX, really. Or that new quiver he was rigging up for Clint. Or the upgraded widow’s bite for Natasha. Or the new integrated circuitry into Steve’s shield so that it could conduct, store, and then release a lightning bolt courtesy of Thor. Anything, _anything_ , but –

“Sir?”

“Bring up S.H.I.E.L.D.’s database and pull out every single reference to Loki. Everything. Cross-reference with our servers. Find out everything there is to know about Asgardian and Jotun biology and any adverse effects experienced or displayed by known magic-users in either group. Google it if you have to. I want everything, down to some undergrad’s essay about the time he tripped balls on acid and met the entire fucking Norse pantheon and questioned them about the meaning of existence. Gimme everything you got.”

He yawned again and bent over to pick the robe up off the floor, bringing with it a hint of cinnamon and burnt wood . . . and dead leaves.

“And get Holness on the phone.”

Loki wasn’t the only one who had someone to disappoint.


End file.
